


all the sorrow at the heart of everything

by a_secondhand_sorrow



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Character Study, Implied/Referenced Suicide, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-04-21
Packaged: 2020-01-23 14:49:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18551956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_secondhand_sorrow/pseuds/a_secondhand_sorrow
Summary: They thought they could change the world.





	all the sorrow at the heart of everything

**Author's Note:**

> this is a quick (like real quick) thing I posted on tumblr. there’s barely anything here. but...enjoy
> 
> title from ‘the song of purple summer’ from spring awakening

Connor looked at his surroundings through a broken haze. He wondered if his drawings or his writings would ever be good enough for anyone. He wondered if they could help people like him. But he couldn’t take it, the inside of his brain. Most nights he wanted to reach inside of it and scratch until everything was gone and he could finally sleep without those taunting voices. He gives up, then. He doesn’t know what else to do. He’s seen too much pain to imagine this being a life he wants to live.

He wanted to change the world. He knew he couldn’t.

Jared breaks into his parents’ liquor cabinet, knowing they don’t give a damn. He never liked drinking. He still doesn’t, but it dulls the fact that he has no where to go and no one else to be with. He’s on autopilot, churning out cruel jokes and mediocre assignments. There’s no will to survive left in him. Sorrow becomes his best friend as he dances each night with misery. More than anything, he wonders how Evan is holding up. He wonders if the fans of the Connor project ever started leaving the Murphy’s alone. He wonders if Alana ever shut it down completely. He never checks in with any of them.

He didn’t plan on changing the world, but by coming along he found that he wanted to more then he knew.

Alana searches through her computer late at night, scrolling through the pages of the Connor Project, trying to learn where she went wrong. She’s left unsatisfied, and she goes through the motions of a day. She smiles without feeling happy and talks with nothing to say. Her hours are busy but they feel emptier than ever. She fills her resumé up to the brim, but she knows none of it really matters. Nothing she’s done has ever mattered. Her actions are empty and she feels emptier.

She truly believed she could change the world, and if not the world at least something. She was wrong. Maybe that’s what hurts the most.

  
Zoe lies awake at night, listening to the buzz of her phone as a stranger channels their anger through the air. She is tired, and perhaps that is why she can’t quite understand what she is feeling. She’s sad, maybe even grieving for someone she barely even knew yet knew too well. Longing and nostalgia strike their chords through her, but for what she doesn’t know. A shadow lingers at the corner of her eyelids and a figure’s hand ghosts across her back, comforting yet cold. The stars hang heavy and expectant outside of her window.

She never wanted to change the world. She only wanted to live in it.

Evan drives to the orchard. He lies under the largest, oldest tree that hadn’t been bulldozed and wonders what it would have been like, had he seen the world for the last time that day. The sun burns bright, again, and it’s all he can see. He hopes someday the pain he inflicted on everyone will be dulled by time. He never wanted to hurt them. He wants to call Zoe, or Jared, or Alana, but he knows he can’t. He wants to turn back time and save Connor. He wants to let go again, but he knows for sure now that can never happen. The sky stretches out before him for forever. Nothing is okay, in the orchard or in him. But it’s such a beautiful sight. Maybe someday he will be okay, if the pain of those dark days ever leave him.

He wanted to change the world. More than that, he wanted to change himself.

They were five naïve kids who thought they could best their demons. They were only partially right.


End file.
